EVENTS

How to make baseless accusations become true via repetition

And another item. “Gender traitor.” People have been milking that pair of words for going on a year now. It’s a meme, a thing, a Masonic handshake, which rests on the idea that it’s a favorite pejorative used by the non-ERV faction of The Great Rift. ERVite “Commander Tuvok” for instance on Greta’s thread:

People all over FTB used “gender traitor” for that very same definition. [That is: “Sister-punisher: A woman who turns on other women to gain favor of sexist men.”]

People all over FTB used “gender traitor” for that very same definition.

I just did some research. You see, it was really difficult, but that’s why I’m getting my PhD. I had to scroll to the top of the FtB main page, type in “gender traitor” to the search box, and then count the number of posts that came up. Two! Two whole posts!

But wait. I clicked the posts, and do you know the context “gender traitor” was brought up in? Quoting people from the slimepit! Shocking how not a single blogger has ever actually described someone using the term gender traitor. I must have missed something.

Two whole posts – for “all over FTB.” Interesting.

I wonder if the meme will be retired now. I won’t be holding my breath.

I first encountered “gender traitor” in Margaret Atwood’s book from 1985, A Handmaid’s Tale (which the Christian right seem to think is a guidebook to their theocratic utopia.) It was the charge levied against gay men; being found guilty — and they were ALWAYS found guilty — meant death by hanging.

I first encountered “gender traitor” in Margaret Atwood’s book from 1985, A Handmaid’s Tale (which the Christian right seem to think is a guidebook to their theocratic utopia.) It was the charge levied against gay men; being found guilty — and they were ALWAYS found guilty — meant death by hanging.

As a gay man myself, the phrase disturbs me deeply.

Wow, I didn’t remember that. That’s definitely another bad external association providing a reason not to use it (not that the other isn’t sufficient).

I dont think Jen did it correctly(and we should rely on google over homegrown search solutions)
So in Advanced Search in Google if you type
this exact word or phrase: gender traitor and
site or domain: freethoughtblogs.com

You do get more results(35) . Still need to see posts v/s comments and eliminate duplicates. hardly all over.

Still reminds me of the time Tom Johnson used his many aliases to search for cuss words on Pharyngula.

@4 Greg: you shouldn’t be disturbed. I am male and straight. Still I proudly declare myself to be a gender traitor, betraying male heterosexual supremacy. You see, I consider women ánd gays my equals (like all human beings) and try to treat them like that. My female counterpart is a better driver than I am (heck, I don’t even have a licence) and as a youngster I preferred to live with my gay dad to living with my remarried mum.

You should be afraid though. Deeply afraid. I smell burning stakes, lit by eg Charles Worley. You might end up there if they get their chance.

To be fair I googled “gender traitor” and ERV. The first reference I could find was on July 1 where skeptifem called abbie gender traitor on the ERV site. This was followed on July 5 by Salty Current calling Abbie and Miranda Hale gender traitors on butterflies and wheels. Then there was another posting where skeptifem again called abbie a gender traitor in a blog post on the skeptifem site on July 27th.

Those seem to be the only non-ERV referencing sources I can find but they seem to predate all of the ERV referencing sources I can find.

While neither of these events occurred here at FtB, it could be argued that since both of these people have and do post here at FtB, that the phrase “People all over FTB” could be kinda-sorta construed as not completely a falsehood.

In a politifact sort of way I would have to give this one a “mostly false” rating.

People really need to step back from the hate, and deal with the issues in hand, I find it toxic when terms like gender traitor are used. I find it toxic when the term traitor is used at all, and they are generally banded about by group thinks. I try not to do group think.

Currently I’m trying to process why any discussion about behaviours within social “skeptic” gatherings degenerates into flame wars….. I had to take a step back for a bit when the teeth were turned on JT over at his blog,

People really need to step back from the hate, and deal with the issues in hand,

Yes. Stop being offended for being insulted and demeaned for being to ugly to molest when all you’re doing is asking for clear guidelines on how sexual harassment should be handled at atheist conventions. Please, you must stop. It’s not helping.

Please note that definitely needs a citation. I haven’t read Abby’s blog, maybe I’m going to have to, to form. Judgement myself, in the meantime provide evidence or that is a slur.

A) No it’s not a slur. It’s an insult at best. Get to know the difference.
How about reading the second post of Ophelia right under this one?
Will I find a comment from you there?
Then, go over to Jen’s blog, one of them linked back here.
Why should other people do your homework for you when the bloggers here have done you the courtesy of properly linking you to the relevant stuff.

You are welcome to read Jen McCreight’s blogpost where she quotes Abbie Smith saying

How to attack every single male in the atheist movement and give yourself a compliment at the same time:
“often make unwanted and sexually aggressive sexual advances toward young pretty women and that I should not be alone with them.”

I guess McCreight, Watson, Svan, and Benson should be perfectly fine then.

To which one of her friends joined in with “You’re right. They have nothing to worry about Hahahahahahahaha :D”

And that’s her not even being as nasty as she gets. One of her most recent hobbies is mocking McCreight for being too active in skepticism. That McCreight’s clearly a failure and that she’s being weak for objecting to the discrimination and hostility she’s witnessed towards atheists.

@22 Giliell, I admit that I Don’t follow every link, in a Blog post. I admit that I don’t follow every crazy thing some blogger says, that is why when a poster in a thread, slurs someone as a misogynist, then I call for an attached citation!

Zengaze – you didn’t just ask for a citation, you said “Please note that definitely needs a citation. I haven’t read Abby’s blog, maybe I’m going to have to, to form. Judgement myself, in the meantime provide evidence or that is a slur.” That’s quite bossy and huffy when you admit you haven’t read the blog in question. Did it not occur to you that there must be a lot of backstory here that you weren’t familiar with? In which case the sensible and polite thing to do is just to ask for some background information, or what words to use to look it up?

Hahaha! That’s right! I remember now that it was used on Butterflies and Wheels before B&W was part of FTB. And it wasn’t exactly endorsed at the old place, either. I did point out it was a slur for gay men in Atwood’s book at that time, too, among other problematic ambiguities with the term. I think the following three links have a fairly complete discussion of the term at the old B&W:

Aw, I got moderated for having too many links (3 to be exact). Hmm, come to think of it, I’m not actually sure if you want those links to be on this thread, Ophelia, so I will understand if you delete the comment from moderation instead of publishing it.

Excellent piece?!! If nothing else, he used to be able to tell good writing from bad.

Also tweets trying to get Russell Blackford to agree with him, which fell flat. Also tweets moaning about bullying of Miranda Hale. No tweets about hundreds of comments calling various other women cunts and bitches.

Also a tweet saying he should remove FTB from his feed and get another hobby. Yes he should. Jeezis. He should have gotten another hobby about three years ago.

I did point out it was a slur for gay men in Atwood’s book at that time, too, among other problematic ambiguities with the term.

Did I respond to that? I’ decided to stop using it due to a single but serious problematic association, but I don’t recall talking about the Atwood issue. Am I just forgetting, or did I miss those posts?

And that’s just the first bit. Not even getting into how Stephanie Zvan actually wants there to be a record kept and for the claims to be detailed (to better understand the issue and protect everyone) or hundred other idiocies. Jesus. I’m glad there are some sane people out there.

Thanks to all the skeptics out there who’re trying to do something about sexual harassment and assault. Kudos to all the Atheist groups adopting policies or dealing with sexual harassment. Thank you Ophelia, Stephanie, Jen, Greta and everyone else who’s been on this.

And not to be a naysayer or anything but, I’m less optimistic about ERV’s victim game not working.

My head is full of sparkly fog at the moment, from seeing tweets by former co-author praising Scented Nectar’s post. Godalmighty.

Yeesh. Here is Scented Nectar on why Elevator Guy didn’t hear Rebecca Watson say that she didn’t want to be bothered at the conference in Dublin:

Also, have you ever tried listening to [Watson]? I usually only last about a minute on her videos. She’s boring as fuck. Maybe [Elevator Guy] was listening to someone else or daydreaming. Why does she figure that everyone clings to her every word? I don’t get that.

Did you get that? EG thought Watson was boring, so he asked boring old her back to his room to chat over a cup of coffee. (*cough*) Also, EG really didn’t want to hear Watson before, which is why he so badly wanted to talk with her later. (*cough* *cough*) That’s some impeccably twisted logic, wouldn’t you say? If your former co-author is going to praise Scented Nectar, he should be praising her for being a walking talking Foot-In-Mouth Machine.

It makes perfect sense when you stand on your head and squint, Aratina Cage. It’s all about shifting your paradigm of understanding. Simply view Rebecca Watson as being wrong no matter what and everything falls into place nicely.

Did I respond to that? I’ decided to stop using it due to a single but serious problematic association, but I don’t recall talking about the Atwood issue. Am I just forgetting, or did I miss those posts?

You probably missed it. By the time I brought it up (in the thread “Fun with names” linked above), it had been discussed to death already.

Anyway, I don’t think it matters. The slimepit crowd’s schtick is to disingenuously take words we use out of context and twist them into the most vile thing possible in order to redirect the conversation away from their behavior and onto our behavior. And then they do the “truth via repetition” schtick after that as this post discusses. That is exactly what they did with gender traitor.

And then they do the “truth via repetition” schtick after that as this post discusses. That is exactly what they did with gender traitor.

And it worked. ERV’s defenders picked up on it like news pundits. Everything became about the hypocrisy of objecting to “bad werdz” and the evil behind a handful (who were largely rebuked) of people using gender traitor.

You probably missed it. By the time I brought it up (in the thread “Fun with names” linked above), it had been discussed to death already.

Ah. Thanks.

Anyway, I don’t think it matters. The slimepit crowd’s schtick is to disingenuously take words we use out of context and twist them into the most vile thing possible in order to redirect the conversation away from their behavior and onto our behavior. And then they do the “truth via repetition” schtick after that as this post discusses. That is exactly what they did with gender traitor.

Yes, definitely.

***

the evil behind a handful (who were largely rebuked) of people using gender traitor.

Please stop this. I don’t appreciate this “rebuked” and “taken to task” business. There were silly hyperbolic complaints and there were some valid points about the term itself, of which I found one reason not to use it (and to look for better ones to say the same thing) convincing. I would also have found the Atwood association sufficient reason had I noted it at the time (sorry, AC). As I said in the post I linked to above, I do not think that there was anything for which we should be “rebuked.” As far as I’m concerned, the problem with the term is those (two) associations and that’s it.

I didn’t mean they dissuaded you, SC. Just that the majority of the people who are being accused of using it were very visible objectors to the phrase. I know you and skeptifem don’t agree with them (I’m pretty meh about it, myself)

Would it help if I said “most felt, and continue to feel, the phrase was inappropriate for a number of reasons?”

See, people talk amongst themselves about other people. And sometimes give one another an informal “heads up” about people they are likely to run into, who might be jerks. “Watch out for so-and-so, he’s a groper.” That sort of thing.

That’s what Jen referred to as “The List”.

According to charming SN and her pal ERV, women shouldn’t be allowed to do that. Because that’s having a Blacklist, and that’s wrong.

They’re either pretending that Jen’s casual reference to a “List” refers to some sort of actual Blacklist, one which is intended to keep certain men from speaking at conferences–in which case they’re lying–or–

They want to suppress a certain kind of speech among women in a community about powerful personalities they’re liable to run into, because it–somehow–amounts to “convicting” men and “depriving them of income.”

Zengaze
It’s pretty arrogant not only not to read the links that are the necessary source of the claims, but actually also not reading the very posts to which you are commenting BUT to expect everybody else to make up for your inadequacy by spoonfeeding you the information you would have if read before you typed.
You’re the equivalent of somebody who goes to a scientific conference without having read the papers that are discussed nor the program of the conference itself but thinks they’ve got valid points to make.

Ophelia
I’m sorry about your co-author.

+++++
I wished they could at least get their narratives straight. Rebecca Watson and Jen are at the same time ugly and pretty, unfuckable but also obviously fucking their way through life, coffee can never mean sex but they should be glad somebody wanted to fuck them anyway and so on.
Now we can add to the list of legends the Dawkins-blacklist-boycott and I have the feeling that the next meme will be PZ calling people to gang rape gelato man.

@ Julian, you think keeping sexual harassment claims should be kept secret and dealt with internally? I’m thinking you’re catholic. Having private lists composed from whispers, of people to be excommunicated, never mind catholic, you would have been great for the USA during the mcCarthy era.

Sexual harassment claims are a serious business, and shouldn’t be left to cliques to decide.

Any and all allegations Of sexual harrasment should be dealt with openly, and if necessary by the law.

Don’t be stupid. Sexual assault is private until the person assaulted wishes to disclose what happened to them and even then that’s still confidential kept between them their advocate and (hopefully) the authorities. And please, at least read Stephanie Zvan’s proposal before you start accusing anyone of McCarthyism.

I would like to point out it is terribly ironic that you went for the Catholic comparison where the current approach (where offenders are simply passed around from convention to convention with only a few verbal warnings to some of the women present and no reprecussion for their actions) is much closer to how the RCC runs than aanything that’s been proposed at FtB.

Ok, I’ve spent too much of my time trying to catch up on the sink hole of conflict, I was light reading blogs at the time of elevator gate, so I have an idea where the roots are, but there’s too much since for me to invest my time in going through it all.

My limited conclusions therefore are, its a clusterfuck. There is a lot of vendettas at play, the scented Nectar argument has weight, the school yrd comment section is disgraceful, Abbie from my limited reading and trying to trace back needs to put down that spite rifle she has pointed at Jen, scented needs to stop applying to be Abby’s sidekick, and everybody needs to take a step back and deal with the realities of sexual harassment.

By the way if it isn’t yet apparent, I’m not anybody’s ally, and better yet, i dont want to be anyone’s ally, I don’t white knight, I call bs or injustice out when I see it, if that offends the person I call out, or the person who is the victim of the injustice, or the choir, c’est la vie.

Blimey, I have just followed some links and, well, why do all left-ish/progressive movements end up like this? Devouring themselves in trivial internicine squabbles? It seems to me that everyone involved in this argument agrees on 99.9% of everything. I have seen this happen sooooooo many times. It is why the left will never stage a movement as effective as the Tea Party. Watch it happen again in Greece, I give it three months.

But this isn’t trivial. Go ahead and read what Abbie has written in her monumental pit of slime. I don’t think it is trivial at all. It’s like saying that the priests calling for the rounding up of gay people into concentration camps is trivial. No, it isn’t. Misogyny isn’t trivial.

Misogyny and harassment aren’t trivial Aratina, but the squabble seems to me to be pretty much nothing but name calling and clique-forming. One way or the other, though, this looks like a major schism entirely driven by internal dispute, and that is classic of left/progressive movements and really depressing. Does anybody disagree about anything substantial here? I can’t see it.

I do care and I am not jaded, just irritated to watch the left/progressive side kicking itself into irrelevance yet again. Name calling is trivial most of the time,stereotype threat is something else altogether (as you probably know). You are not the worst offender Ophelia, but I have to tell you, that from the outside, in this, you all look pretty pathetic. You ask me to go and I will, I hope the rest of you manage to escape the playground without too many more tears, but somehow, I doubt it. Adios.

Stereotype threat is a different thing, yes, but where do you think stereotypes come from in the first place? What is priming? Why is it that when women or blacks or gays or other non-dominant-group people are reminded of their non-dominant status they perform worse? It’s because of a lifetime of being reminded! Duh.

Does anybody disagree about anything substantial here? I can’t see it.

Yes. Did you notice that Abbie Smith and her group objecting to atheist conferences having anti-harassment policies? Because that’s pretty big.

You are not the worst offender Ophelia, but I have to tell you, that from the outside, in this, you all look pretty pathetic.

And all the faux progressives who bail at the whim of the (social) conservatives like you look equally pathetic. You don’t mind sexist slurs or insults? Whatever. You don’t think people being degraded by noticeable members of your community as to ugly to molest is an issue? Say so. You don’t think people should push back against bullies? You aren’t alone.

But please don’t pretend not caring about those issues makes you right. Don’t pretend it makes you superior. It’s insulting to people being harassed and it’s just plain stupid. If you have no dog or concern here, walk away. No one wants to hear about how much better than them you are.

and everybody needs to take a step back and deal with the realities of sexual harassment.

Because the people who’re bringing it up with organizations (bearing in mind most don’t have policies or procedures for dealing with harassment) obviously are the ones who refuse to deal with the reality of sexual harassment. Never mind how often the write about or link to studies examining it. None of that matters.

I hope the rest of you manage to escape the playground without too many more tears

Oh, so we are children to you? As if children are not hurt by bullying. As if people’s feelings do not matter at all. You could hardly be more dismissive.

I suppose you feel the same way about people counter-protesting the Westboro Baptists at rallies for reason, gay pride parades, schoolyards, and military funerals? Children, all of them? None of their feelings matter? Really?

“Gender Traitor” is from my blog. I have been featured (well, linked to really) from scienceblogs before the migration, I can’t recall being linked to from free thought blogs except for comment sections. I don’t know where the misconception came from but the post where I coined the phrase included a lot of measured thought and introspection about my past and I am not ashamed of what I wrote. I would appreciate some credit for what I said from these folks.

Yes. Did you notice that Abbie Smith and her group objecting to atheist conferences having anti-harassment policies? Because that’s pretty big.

They don’t, especially not as a ‘group’ of hers. So that’s neither big nor small. Or is there a statement available from that group indicating that anti-harassment policies are either not supported or outright rejected?

I don’t think they have objected to that – I don’t think they’ve mentioned the anti-harassment policies at all.

You could just have ended your sentences after “I don’t think”. They would have been accurate.
Here’s Scented Nectar for you, over at Jen’s:

Before today’s decision by you all to inflict new, harsh, radfeminist-defined harassment rules (=vague everything that makes me sad must be sexist, waaa)…

That refers to the anti-harrasment rules that several atheist conferences didn’t have so far, that haven’t been written yet but which they are going to set up.
Here, I’ve just proven you wrong.
Satisifed?

Before today’s decision by you all to inflict new, harsh, radfeminist-defined harassment rules (=vague everything that makes me sad must be sexist, waaa)…

Just because Scented Nectar does not agree with a set of rules that she thinks might be proposed by a certain group of people, does not mean that SN is against harassment rules in general. You are not burning down a puny straw man here, it’s a full blown wicker man.

Here, I’ve just proven you wrong.

You are making the same mistake that Ophelia mentioned in her post. One or two single expressions of opinion don’t automatically make it representative for a whole group. And in this case, your quote wasn’t even about what Julian claims to be the opinion of ERV et al before.

zilch
Oh. my. goodness.
Tim Groc was talking specifically about:
-Abbie and her pals
-Atheist cons having anti-harrasment policies.
-Them opposing them.
And he denied that they had talked about them at all.
So, I have a quote that shows that:
-some of them have talked about them.
Which is enough to prove the claim that nobody talked about the wrong already.
-those who talked about them opposed them without even having read them on account of them not having been written yet.
It’s not my fault that you suck at English and logic alike.

Just because Scented Nectar does not agree with a set of rules that she thinks might be proposed by a certain group of people, does not mean that SN is against harassment rules in general.

Oh please.

SN and the rest of ERV’s group are treating anti-harassment rules the same way the Republicans in the US treat abortion. All their time is spent blasting such ideas as showing favoritism, persecuting innocent people and being a McCarthy style witch-hunt. The thin sliver of “acceptable” rules are so narrow as to be next to useless.

Then there’s how often ERV’s group has outright lied about what Jen Mccreight and Steph Zvan have said about what they’d like to see. Re reading SN’s post I can’t find where there’s anything actual Steph Zvan or Jen McCreight’s. Nothing in that whole piece actually addresses anything they’ve said.

Just a lot of arguing that evil sluts are going to use this to accuse good atheist man (how? how can SN even know that’s going to be anymore possible than at work or school or any other case of sexual harassment?), that no there isn’t really all that much sexual harassment out there and Steph Zvan is making it up, and insisting people who have been sexually harassed need to publicly name and show their faces before we can take any claims of inappropriate behavior seriously.

Fuck her and fuck that.

Take your strawman accusations back to your friends. That’s where they belong.

Sure they are, Tim. You expect me to interpret their comments about harassment policies as applying only to a specific policy proposed. That’s unjustifiable charity. There’s absolutely nothing in their comments to justify that interpretation. They’re not talking about any specific policy at all. Just the MERE IDEA of a policy, brought up by Stephanie and Jen, and the MERE IDEA of women (horror of horrors!) talking about which men are likely to grope them, and the MERE IDEA of repeat offenders being denied invitations or banned from future conferences (which, by the way, is the only way any anti-harassment policy can have any teeth).

They think ALL such policies are “new, harsh, radfeminist-defined,” whatever that means.

I know, my bad. I show the slightest hint of showing charity towards the Slimepit and I’m obviously now public enemy #1!

There’s absolutely nothing in their comments to justify that interpretation.

I’m not interpreting anything. The fact that none of them have said they reject these policies meamns that you are interpreting. Perhaps you are right, they might simply be lying. But what was stated earlier was that the Slimers had actually said they rejected the harassment policies.

I think the people at ERV probably distinguish between the anti-harassment policies, and the current commotion over what they call “the blacklist”.

Honestly – you want to show “charity” toward the ERV gang on the blog of one of their chief targets, whom they have called a cunt and ranted about kicking in the cunt fuckknowshowmany times over the past 11 months? That’s just moronic. You don’t go on the blog of a Jew to show “charity” toward Stormfront; you don’t go on the blog of say Dan Savage to show “charity” toward Fred Phelps; you don’t go on mine to show “charity” to the ERV gang. So fuck off.

Oh I’m treating you like a piece of shit, am I? Oh I see. I didn’t realize. I thought it was people who have spent almost a year calling selected women cunts and fucking bitches and smelly snatch, day in and day out, who were treating people like pieces of shit, but it turns out I’m treating you like a piece of shit. I never can seem to get these things right.

I didn’t get the impression he was defending them, and he did refer to them as Slimers, and the Slimepit, etc.

I don’t think he was “showing them charity”. I actually agree that the ERV crowd probably have a different interpretation of just what these policies are. I notice they are demanding polices that are “evidence based”, and open to scrutiny, etc. This is not technically a rejection of the policies, although they are causing a ruckus by making special predemands.

I think this is what Grocko was trying to say. I don’t think he was defending them.

The fact that none of them have said they reject these policies meamns that you are interpreting.

Are you fucking kidding me? Why are they kicking and screaming if they don’t reject those policies? Why do they specifically mention the policies–as Gilliel shows in her quote of Scented Nectar–if they only care about this supposed “blacklist”?

Their entire tantrum is in response to the suggestion of the policies. It is a rejection of those policies.

I said you were showing unjustifiable charity, and you are. You’re bending over backwards to give the benefit of the doubt to ERV where none is called for—all because you want to be uncharitable to us. You’re pretzeling yourself to make ERV okay, so you can make us the enemy that’s meanly picking on them. That does make you against us.

I’ve just had another peer into the Slimepit (TM) and they are not talking about, or objecting to anti-harassment policies.

So, according to you, only things Ophelia says on B&W are real, only things PZ says on Pharyngula are what he says.
Because I gave you an actual quote from Scented Nectar where she opposes to anti-harassment policies.
Or do you dispute that:
-Scented Nectar belongs to Abbie and her pals
or
-that the actual quote isn’t about anti-harassment policies
-doesn’t oppose it?

I thought it was people who have spent almost a year calling selected women cunts and fucking bitches and smelly snatch, day in and day out, who were treating people like pieces of shit, but it turns out I’m treating you like a piece of shit. I never can seem to get these things right.

Seriously. How many times do you have to be called a cunt before you’re allowed to stop giving your insulter the benefit of the doubt?

I think Scented Nectar is rejecting a set of policies that are based on what the ERV people are describing as the blacklist. The policies, which are not fully rolled out yet, are a separate issue from the plans to deal with bad speakers.

This is what is causing the confusion. You may have a point in saying that the ERV crew are using this confusion to erm, confuse, the issue, but they are not rejecting anti-harassment policies, per se.

I don’t think this is about giving people the benefit of the doubt, etc. it is simply studying what was actually said.

Pointing that out is not giving “charity” or defending ERV. Everybody would be in a better position when the policies are fully explained and implemented, and then we can gauge what ERV’s reaction to them is.

Plenty of shit has come out of the Slimepit without having to prejudge or guess what they think of things. I know Ophelia is pissed off about the behaviour over the last year, but I don’t think it warrants lashing out at people who don’t completely agree 100% with what is said here. That’s what the ERV people do!

Before today’s decision by you all to inflict new, harsh, radfeminist-defined harassment rules (=vague everything that makes me sad must be sexist, waaa)…

That is not the smoking bullet that you think it is. Scented Nectar may in actuality be ready to reject anything that comes out of the FTB sphere, but she has not rejected those policies as of yet.

Again, what Scented Nectar and the others are criticising is a pre-emptive view of what they think the policies are. I’m not even sure that they have any ideas what the policies actually are. Is there an actual copy of them for reading?

I find the idea of rejecting policies before you even know what they are is somewhat bizarre. However, policies are not immune from criticism whatever they entail, and until we all know what those policies are, it is just stupid to criticise, reject, praise, etc.

In due time, we will get to see the policies, and I’m sure that they will be sensible.

I stand by what I said. ERV and company treat any attempt (this isn’t the only example. During discussions of rape and sexual assaultthey’re equally willing to play this game) at dealing with sexual harassment with open contempt. From this and past discussions it’s clear. They aren’t concerned about the sexual harassment itself or with preventing it but from obfuscating the issue until everyone is fighting on so many fronts we don’t have a unified theme anymore.

Which is why I likened them to republicans earlier. It’s the same level of bullshit and it’s the same game. They eveen play the same appropriation game Republican women do when they say abortion demeans them as women (except that ERV and SN do it in regards to anti-harassment policies and women asserting the harm “pick-up” culture can have on them) I will not bend over backwards when what’s going on is plain to see.

TheCure, why are you bending over backwards to defend these people when you yourself admit that they’re attacking people based on their ignorant assumptions of the policies those people espouse?

What you’re doing is actually far worse than giving them the benefit of the doubt. You’re admitting that they’re doing something unintellectual, and then you’re defending them anyway!

You say this:

That is not the smoking bullet that you think it is. Scented Nectar may in actuality be ready to reject anything that comes out of the FTB sphere, but she has not rejected those policies as of yet.

Again, what Scented Nectar and the others are criticising is a pre-emptive view of what they think the policies are.

If you don’t know what a policy is, and yet you have a negative “pre-emptive” (another way of saying this would be “prejudiced,” because you have literally pre-judged the policy) view of it, then you are rejecting the policy. You are categorically rejecting it, because you know nothing of its specifics–just what type of policy it is (anti-harassment) and who it’s been espoused by (Jen and Stephanie). And based on those limited facts, you’re imagining that the policy is some bizarre McCarthyist plot. If you’re willing to make that imaginative leap based on limited facts about the policy, then guess what? You’re categorically against it.

I see no reason to waste my time imagining that maybe, just maybe, they would be okay with a specific harassment policy under some set of circumstances. They’ve already reacted negatively to the very idea of it. If they wanted to know specifics, they could just ask.

But you’re not only wasting your time with this imaginative exercise, you’re also saying we should. That’s nonsense.

Pointing that out is not giving “charity” or defending ERV. Everybody would be in a better position when the policies are fully explained and implemented, and then we can gauge what ERV’s reaction to them is.

We can do that right now. They are reacting to the mere suggestion of having some type of policy by (1) imagining that the proponents of a policy are advocating witch-hunts, and (2) telling the proponents they’re too ugly to be molested.

They’ve already reacted negatively to the very idea of it. If they wanted to know specifics, they could just ask.

It’s the assumption they have of anything relating to women’s security. That women will make things up just to injure men. A faulty and moronic assumption that leads them to focus wholly on preserving the reputation of the accused. Which wouldn’t even be a bad thing (Stephanie Zvan even emphasizesd how she would like for these anti-harassment policies to protect the rights of the accused) if they didn’t do it by pre-emptively attacking any and all claims an raising the standard of proof to something that cannot be reasonably met let alone allow for effectively dealing with harassment at atheist cons and the like.

Oh for christ’s sake. Go away, all of you people parachuting in to fret about exactly how wrong the ERV gang are about one thing, let alone about how you think I should react to people doing that. They’re not interesting people, they don’t repay deep analysis. Go away.

And to repeat – I have zero interest in minute discussion of the nuances of what the people at ERV think, just as I have zero interest in minute discussion of what Stormfront people think or what Fred Phelps thinks.